Red cherry shrimp and betta

[Pilot00]

Originally Posted by Aus

Bettas are predatory fish by instinct, and in my experience all of mine will hunt down smaller shrimp and eat them. I like to add half a dozen to my tanks every few months, as the tanks are heavily planted and the shrimp have lots of places to hide - therefore, the fish take months to track them all down usually. Sometimes the shrimp even breed in there, and the fish pick off the babies. I just reduce pellet feeding when I notice this happening, and have never had a fish bloat.

I have to say that with the occasional RCS snack my fish have never looked better or been more active, the stimulation of having something to hunt that is a bit challenging really makes a difference to their behaviour and fitness in general. The fish in planted tanks with RCS are all heavily muscled and thicker in the body than those who do not get shrimp, since they actually do more with their bodies than float about looking pretty.

As to concerns about the fish 'choking' - my bettas eat shrimp the length of thier own heads, shell and all, and have never had problems. I don't know anyone who's fish has actually 'choked' and if they did it must have been sheer bad luck. It certainly isn't a common thing.

So, yeah. If you intend to have cute shrimpy pets and can't stand the idea of them being eaten, don't put them in with a predatory fish..

I do have Darwin Algae Shrimp (sort of like ghost shrimp in size) with my wild bettas and after a week of being picked on they are pretty much left alone now.

If I had a less aggressive betta splendens and wanted more permanent shrimpy tank mates, I'd probably go with larger varieties of shrimp like ghosts or the Darwins and see how those went.

Added a shrimp breeder tank in the to do list to supply food for the future sorority... Question is what size of tank do they need to breed?

[Aus]

As long as the tank is clean and filtered, and they have enough food, shrimp will breed in any size tank (they breed in my 3.5 gallon easily enough!). I should think a 5 gallon tank would support up to 50 shrimp or more, but again it depends on water quality not tank size. Shrimp don't mind being crowded but they do mind ammonia.. They also need lots of plants (they love mosses) and nutritious food, so a good brand of shrimp pellet is recommended.

[Tikibirds]

what if the shrimp was bigger, like a bamboo shrimp....would the shrimp go after the betta?

[Aus]

I do not recommend bamboo shrimp for several reasons:

1. As bamboo shrimp very rarely breed in captivity, it's safe to say that 99.9% are captured from the wild, putting strain on the wild population. It's possible to breed them, but it;s such a fussy process that few bother, which is sad. And they certainly won't breed in a betta tank or any other kind of regular aquarium set up, so each one sold as a tankmate is just hastening their extinction.

2. They are heavy filter feeders and require a higher flow of water than bettas generally prefer, in order to sift the water for food.

Most bamboo shrimp starve to death, because they aren't getting enough algae from the water column to feed on - they actually require 'green water' feedings. If they are scouring the bottom of the tank for food, they're starving.

Oh - and bamboo shrimp are more likely to get hassled by the fish. They can and do stand up for themselves, too, but I'm not sure what sort of damage they might do in that case. Mostly they are pretty peaceful.

I'd not mind attempting to breed some, one day.

[Pilot00]

Thanks for the info Aus! I think i can manage a sustainable population. Do they breed often or you can make a breading plan?

[candyman995]

Is it best to introduce the shrimp to the tank before the fish then to stop them being eaten as quickly??

Also is it safe to keep any species of crab with betta fish at all????